People seek weight loss support on online social networks, but little is known about how to build a supportive community. We created four Twitter accounts portraying women interested in weight loss (two obese, two normal weight/overweight) and followed health care professional and peer accounts for 2-5 weeks. We examined follow back rates, interactions, and organic follows from professionals and peers by weight status. Follow back rates did not differ by weight status when following professionals (6.8 % normal weight/overweight vs 11.0 % for obese; p = 0.4167) or peers (6.7 % for normal weight/overweight vs 10.8 % for obese; p = 0.1548). Number of interactions and organic followers also did not differ by weight status. Peers interacted with study accounts significantly more than professionals (p = 0.0138), but interactions were infrequent. Women seeking weight loss support on Twitter may need to be present for more than 5 weeks to build an interactive weight loss community.

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 23. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 19 October 2017.

All research outputs

#602,187

of 12,494,470 outputs

Outputs from Translational Behavioral Medicine

#35

of 518 outputs

Outputs of similar age

#20,570

of 263,214 outputs

Outputs of similar age from Translational Behavioral Medicine

#4

of 28 outputs

Altmetric has tracked 12,494,470 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.

So far Altmetric has tracked 518 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its peers.

Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 263,214 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.

We're also able to compare this research output to 28 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 85% of its contemporaries.